Share

A drilling rig in Howard County. (James Nielsen / Houston Chronicle)

The drilling boom in America’s oil and natural gas fields has brought jobs and prosperity to Texas but extracted a bloody toll. In 2012 alone, 65 oil and gas workers died on the job in Texas — the most fatalities in a decade and nearly 60 percent more than the previous year’s tally. The deaths are only a fraction of the injuries suffered by workers in the five years of an ongoing drilling and fracking boom.

Part Two

Mitch McNamee slipped during a midnight shift and fell backward on Nabors Rig 245 as it probed for oil at the wind-swept edge of North America. He struck his head, slid on his back and landed perilously ...

If Shannon Hardy had known about all the safety violations and all the roughnecks killed at Robinson Drilling rigs, she would have tried to talk her son, Chase Dillon, out of taking his first real job ...

The last thing Felipe Saiz saw from behind his trademark mirrored sunglasses was the vast sun-bleached vista of the Permian Basin where he'd grown up, with its scrub trees and white caliche rock. He was ...

For a full hour, the derrick man's body hung limply, suspended by a safety harness 100 feet above the ground like a fly in a spider's web. After co-workers finally lowered him to the ground, his skull and ...

Accident investigations

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigates only a portion of the most serious accidents involving deaths or three or more hospitalizations. This interactive map shows the locations of OSHA investigations in Texas since 2007 involving oil and gas extraction, drilling, well service and oil and gas support industries. Markers are located on the town closest to the accident site. Some towns may contain multiple points. The accompanying searchable database allows you to look for information on investigations based on the company’s name, accident type or location.